Hermione
by smilesandlaughter
Summary: Hermione tell of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Hermione and the dashing Draco Malfoy. Tragedy unfolds as Hermione rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Very, very AU.


A/N Hope you enjoy this story! As I said before it's very, very AU (alternate universe). Everything is either Leo Tolstoy's or J.K. Rowling's.

Hermione

All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Everything was upset in Ronald Weasley's house. His wife had discovered an intrigue between him and their former French governess, and declared that she would not continue to live under the same roof with him. This state of things had now lasted for three days, and not only the husband and wife but the rest of the family and the whole household suffered from it. They all felt that there was no sense in their living together, and that any group of people who had met together by chance at an inn would have had more in common than they. The wife kept to her own rooms, the husband stopped away from home all day; the children ran about all over the house uneasily, the English governess quarrelled with the housekeeper and wrote to a friend asking if she could find her another situation; the cook had gone out just at dinner-time the day before and had not returned; and the kitchen-maid and coachman had given notice.

On the third day after his quarrel with his wife, Prince Ronald Weasley – Ron, as he was called in his set in Society – woke up at his usual time, eight o'clock, not in his wife's bedroom, but on the morocco leather-covered sofa in his study. He turned his lean, well-kept body over on the springy sofa as if he wished to have another long sleep, and tightly embracing one of the pillows leant his cheek against it; but then suddenly opened his eyes and sat up.

'Let me see what was it?' he thought, trying to recall his dream. 'What was it? Oh yes – Seamus was giving a dinner-party in Dublin – no, not in Dublin but somewhere in Ireland. Oh yes, Dublin is in Ireland, - and Seamus was giving the party. The dinner was served on glass tables – yes, and the tables were singing; and then there were some kind of little decanters that were really women.' His eyes sparkled merrily and he smiled as he sat thinking. 'Yes, it was very nice. There were many other delightful things which I just can't get hold of – can't catch now I'm awake.' Then, noticing a streak of light that had made its way in through a gap in the curtains, he cheerfully let down his legs and felt about with his feet for his slippers lined with soft kid (last year's birthday present, embroidered by his wife); and from nine years' habit he stretched out his arm, without rising, towards where his dressing-gown usually hung in their bedroom. And then he suddenly remembered that, and why, he was not sleeping there but in his study. The smile vanished from his face and he frowned.

"Oh dear, dear, dear!" he groaned, recalling what had happened. And the details of his quarrel with his wife, his inextricable position, and, worst of all, his guilt, rose up in his imagination.

'No, she will never forgive me; she can't forgive me! And the worst thing about it is, that it's all my own fault – my own fault; and yet I'm not guilty! That's the tragedy of it!' he thought. 'Oh dear, oh dear1' he muttered despairingly, as he recalled the most painful details of the quarrel. The worst moment had been when returning home from the theatre merry and satisfied, with a bouquet of roses in his arms for his wife, he did not find her in the drawing-room nor, to his great surprise, in the study, but at last found her in her bedroom with the unlucky note which had betrayed him in her hand.

She sat there: the pretty, thoughtful, ever bustling, and (as he thought) rather simple Lavender – with the note in her hand and a look of terror, despair and anger on her face.

"What is this? This?" she asked, pointing at the note. And, as often happens, it was not so much the memory of the event that tormented him, as of the way he had replied to her.

At that moment there had happened to him what happens to most people when unexpectedly caught in some shameful act: he had not had time to assume an expression suitable to the position in which he stood toward his wife now that his guilt was discovered. Instead of taking offence, denying, making excuses, asking forgiveness, or even remaining indifferent (anything would have been better than what he did), he involuntarily ('reflex action of the brain,' thought Ron) smiled his usual kindly and therefore silly smile.

He could not forgive himself for that silly smile. Lavender, seeing it, shuddered as if with physical pain, and with her usual vehemence burst into a torrent of cruel words and rushed from the room. Since then she had refused to see him.

'It's all the fault of that stupid smile,' thought Ron. 'But what am I to? What can I do?' he asked himself in despair, and could find no answer.

*~*

Ron was truthful with himself. He was incapable of self-deception and could not persuade himself that he repented of his conduct. He could not feel repentant that he, a handsome amorous young man, was not in love with his wife, the mother of five children and who had gone to school with himself. He repented only of not having managed to conceal his conduct from her. Nevertheless he felt his unhappy position and pitied his wife, his children and himself. He might perhaps have been able to hide things from her had he known that the knowledge would so distress her. He had never clearly considered the matter, but had a vague notion that his wife had long suspected him of being unfaithful and winked at it. He even thought that she, who was nothing but an excellent mother of a family, worn-out, already aging, pretty but not beautiful, and in no way remarkable – in fact, quite an ordinary woman – ought to be lenient to him, if only from a sense of justice. It turned out that the very opposite was the case.

'How awful! Oh dear, oh dear, how awful!' Ron kept repeating to himself, and could arrive at no conclusion. 'And how well everything was going on till now – how happily we lived! She was contented, happy in her children; I never interfered with her but left her to fuss over them and the household as she pleased…Of course it's not quite nice that _she _had been a governess in our house. That's bad! There's something banal, a want of taste, in carrying on with one's governess – but then, what a governess!' (He vividly pictured to himself Mademoiselle Delacour's deep blue eyes, and her smile.) 'Besides, as long as she was in the house I never took any liberties. The worst of the matter is, that she is already…Why need it all happen at once? Oh dear, dear, dear! What am I to do?'

He could find no answer, except life's usual answer to the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: live in the needs of the day, that is, find forgetfulness. He could no longer find forgetfulness in sleep, at any rate not before night, could not go back to the music and the songs of the little decanter-women, consequently he must seek forgetfulness in the dream of life.

'We'll see when the time comes,' thought Ron, and got up, put on his scarlet dressing-gown lined with gold silk, tied the cords and taking a deep breath, went with his usual firm tread toward the window, pulled back the heavy damask curtains and rang the bell loudly. The bell was answered immediately by his old friend and valet, Matthew, who brought in his clothes, shoes and a letter. He was followed by the barber who came every morning to shave Ron and trim his hair.

"Any papers from the office?" asked Ron, as he took the letter and sat down before the mirror.

"They're on the dining-table," answered Matthew with a questioning and sympathizing glance at his master – adding after a pause with a sly smile: "Someone has called from the jobmaster's."

Ron did not answer, but glanced at Matthew's face in the mirror. From their looks, as they met in the glass, it was evident that they understood one another. Ron's look seemed to say: "Why do you tell me that? AS if you don't know!"

Matthew put his hands into his jacket-pockets and looked at Ron with a slight, good-humoured smile.

"I ordered him to come the Sunday after next, and not to trouble you or himself needlessly till then," he said, evidently repeating a sentence he had prepared.

Ron understood that Matthew meant to have a joke and draw attention to himself. He tore upon the envelope and, unfolding the letter, scanned it quickly; his face brightened.

"Matthew, one of my best friends, Hermione, is coming tomorrow," he said, motioning away for a moment the shiny plump hand of the barber.

"Thank Merlin!" said Matthew, proving by his answer that he knew just as well as Ron the importance of this visit: namely, that Hermione Granger, whose last name was now Boot as she had married Terrence Boot, might help to reconcile the husband and wife.

"Is she coming alone, or with Mr. Boot?"

Ron could not answer as the barber was busy with his upper lip; but he raised one finger, and Matthew nodded to him in the mirror.

"Alone. Would you like one of the upstairs rooms got ready?"

"Ask Lavender."

"Lavender?" Matthew repeated, as if in doubt.

"Yes, tell her. Give her the letter, and see what she says."

"You want to have a try at her?" was what Matthew meant, but he only said: "Yes, sir."

Ron was washed, his hair brushed, and he was about to dress, when Matthew, stepping slowly in his creaking shoes, re-entered the room with the letter in his hand. The barber was no longer there.

"Lavender told me to say that she is going away. 'He may do as he pleases' – that is, as you please, sir," he said, laughing with his eyes only; and, putting his hands in his pockets again, with his head tilted to one side, he gazed at Ron. Ron remained silent, then a kind and rather pathetic smile appeared on his handsome face.

"Ah, Matthew!" he said, shaking his head.

"Never mind, sir- things will shape themselves."

"Shape themselves, eh?"

"Just so, sir."

"Do you think so? – Who's that?' asked Ron, hearing the rustle of a woman's gown outside the door.

"It's me, sir," answered a firm and pleasant woman's voice, and Laura Madley, the children's nurse and a former Hufflepuff, thrust her fresh young face in at the door.

"What is it, Laura?" asked Ron, stepping out to her.

Although he was entirely guilty and was conscious of it, almost everyone in the house – even the nurse, Lavender's best friend – sided with him.

"What is it?" he repeated mournfully.

"Won't you go and try again, sir? By God's grace you might make it up! She suffers dreadfully; it's pitiful to see her, and everything in the house is topsy-turvy. You should consider the children! Own up, sir – it can't be helped! There's no joy without…"

"But she won't admit me!"

"Do your part – God is merciful. Pray to Him, sir, Pray to Him!"

"All right – now go," said Ron, suddenly blushing.

"I must get dressed," said he, turning to Matthew, and he resolutely threw off his dressing gown.

Matthew blew some invisible speck off the shirt which he held ready gathered up like a horse's collar and invested with it Ron's body.

A/N How was it? Please, please review. Thanks so much!


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